On the final podcast of the year, the editor, Sarah Meyrick, is joined by senior writer Madeleine Davies and staff writer Francis Martin to discuss some of the most memorable and significant stories that the Church Times covered in 2025. They discuss: the departure of Justin Welby and ongoing questions about safeguarding in the Church of England; the Bible Society’s Quiet Revival report; the rise of Christian nationalism; the assisted-dying Bill; the nomination of the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally as t...
Dec 18, 2025•29 min
At the age of 91, Richard Holloway has written what he says “feels like the final book”: Last Words, in which he reflects on his long and fascinating life. Richard Holloway is interviewed by Malcolm Doney in this week’s 12-page Books for Christmas supplement, and a recording of their telephone call is on this podcast. The book is also reviewed by Angela Tilby. “I’ve always had a melancholic side to my nature. Melancholy is not sadness,” he says in the interview. “It’s a kind of mood you fall int...
Nov 28, 2025•38 min
This week’s episode is an interview with the Archbishop of York, recorded a week after his return from a five-day visit to Israel and Palestine. The interview is by Francis Martin, staff writer, who travelled with the Archbishop’s delegation, reporting on the trip for the Church Times. The Archbishop spoke about what moment of the visit most resonated for him; being confronted by heavily armed settlers; and why he believes that Israeli actions in Gaza are “genocidal acts” and the situation in th...
Nov 20, 2025•37 min
The Bishop of Washington, DC, the Rt Revd Mariann Edgar Budde, made headlines in January when she preached before President Trump at the traditional post-Inauguration service of prayer for the nation, in Washington National Cathedral. She pleaded with him directly to be merciful to migrants and LGBTQ people (News, 24 January, Features, 5 September). Bishop Budde was a speaker last month at the Festival of Preaching, organised by the Church Times and Canterbury Press, in Southwark Cathedral. The ...
Oct 24, 2025•26 min
On the podcast this week, Dr Selina Stone is interviewed about her new book, A Heavy Yoke: Theology, power and abuse in the Church, by Dr Lisa Adjei, the C of E’s Head of Racial Justice Priority. It was recorded at the book’s launch last month at Bridewell Hall in London. In A Heavy Yoke, Dr Stone lifts the lid on the ways in which Christian theology can, often unwittingly, uphold existing power structures to the detriment of the flourishing of the whole Church. It calls for a more rigorous and ...
Oct 10, 2025•43 min
A team from the Church Times was at Canterbury Cathedral on Friday, where the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury was revealed: the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally. She will be the first woman to hold the post. On the podcast this week, Francis Martin guides us through a memorable day. It includes the Archbishop-designate’s address in the cathedral, shortly after Downing Street announced her nomination; Sarah Meyrick’s interview with Bishop Mullally and episcopal colleagues; and Amelia B...
Oct 03, 2025•34 min
The editor of the Church Times, Sarah Meyrick, is joined by Madeleine Davies, senior writer, and Francis Martin, staff writer, to talk about the challenges that will face the next Archbishop of Canterbury. This week’s edition contains an eight-page pullout exploring what lies ahead for the next Archbishop of Canterbury. On the podcast, Madeleine talks about her article, which looks at the state of the Church of England that the next Archbishop will inherit; and Francis reflects on his piece, whi...
Sep 19, 2025•28 min
In this week’s Church Times, Madeleine Davies has written an indepth feature about the so-called “quiet revival” among younger people, following a recent report by the Bible Society (News, 8 April). On the podcast this week, Madeleine talks about her article with the editor, Sarah Meyrick. They discuss how the research has been received; whether it resonates with what is happening in parishes; what might be attracting young men to church in particular; why the mainstream media has taken such an ...
Aug 19, 2025•22 min
On the podcast this week, there’s another chance to listen to an interview with Elizabeth Oldfield about her book Fully Alive: Tending to the soul in turbulent times (Hodder & Stoughton). The book is now out in paperback and is available from the Church House Bookshop. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399810777/fully-alive Elizabeth is a journalist, public intellectual, and the host of the podcast The Sacred, which explores the deep values of a range of guests. She is a former dire...
Aug 08, 2025•28 min
The podcast this week comes from the General Syond meeting in York, where the Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum, is interviewed by Francis Martin, staff writer for the Church Times. Dr Naoum speaks about life in the region, the welcome that he has received at the Synod, and the prospects of peace in the Middle East. “If I can reconcile myself as both Palestinian and Israeli and Arab and a Christian, that means that we can live together as Israelis and Palestinians. That’s something we can ...
Jul 17, 2025•23 min
On the podcast this week, Dr Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, talks about his latest book, The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It, an examination of society’s fixation with the Nazis and the unravelling of the post-war moral consensus today. He argues that Adolf Hitler has replaced Jesus as the most important moral figure in the West (“we’ve replaced a positive exemplar who shows us what good is with a negative exemplar who shows us what evil is”),...
Jul 04, 2025•30 min
John Harris, the Guardian columnist and host of its Politics Weekly UK podcast, is best known for his political and music journalism. His new book, Maybe I’m Amazed: A story of love and connection in ten songs, is a personal story about life with his autistic son James and the life-changing effect of his son’s intense connection with popular music. On the podcast this week, he talks to Sarah Meyrick, editor of the Church Times, about the book. Harris, who calls himself a “devout agnostic”, also ...
Jun 06, 2025•30 min
On the podcast this week, Francis Spufford discusses his latest novel, Cahokia Jazz, with the Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley. The conversation was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which was held in Winchester in March (Features, 7 March). Set in an alternative America in the 1920s, Cahokia Jazz is “a detective novel with noir tendencies” which is “as inventive and unpredictable in its setting as it is in its thrilling plot”, Dr Oakley wrote in a rev...
May 22, 2025•45 min
The names of most of those who will help to decide the next Archbishop of Canterbury were announced this week: five representatives of the global Anglican Communion, along with those selected from among the central members elected by the General Synod for a five-year term. Previously, the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) has had only one representative of the Anglican Communion, but this was increased to five after a Synod vote in 2022. On the podcast this week, the editor, Sarah Me...
May 16, 2025•23 min
On this episode, Paul Vallely, a columnist for the Church Times, talks about the papacy of Pope Francis and what his legacy might be. Pope Francis adopted “a pastoral approach”, he says, “not a dogmatic approach. “He thought that people, were the centre of the gospel, and he thought that mercy was more important than dogma. He didn’t really change a lot of Catholic teaching, in the sense that he saw dogma as the kind of ideal to which we all aspire. He knew we weren’t perfect or ideal: we were a...
Apr 25, 2025•22 min
Eighty years ago, on 9 April 1945, the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in Flossenburg. Ethics was the final book that he wrote before his arrest by the Nazis. Pages of it were on his desk the day he was taken away and it remained unfinished. Based on careful reconstruction of the manuscripts, freshly and expertly translated and annotated, this crown jewel of Bonhoeffer’s body of work is the culmination of his theological and personal odyssey. A repackaged edition ...
Apr 09, 2025•17 min
On this episode, Chine McDonald speaks about the themes of her new book, Unmaking Mary: Shattering the myth of perfect motherhood (Hodder & Stoughton). The book is available to buy at the Church Times Bookshop here: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399814638/unmaking-mary?vc=CT828 The talk was given earlier this month at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. It was chaired by Dr Eve Poole. In this week’s Church Times, Chine explores depictions of Mary the mother, meek ...
Mar 28, 2025•28 min
On the podcast this week, Mark Oakley reflects on “Paternoster” by Jen Hadfield. This episode was first broadcast in 2023 as part of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent series. “Paternoster” is published in Jen Hadfield’s collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), which won the T.S. Eliot Prize. We are grateful to Bloodaxe Books for giving permission to play a recording of Jen Hadfield reading the poem. https://www.bloodaxebooks.com The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakl...
Mar 21, 2025•15 min
In this episode, Edward Stourton, the veteran journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme, examines how truth can survive in a digital age, and explains why truth-telling still matters. He was delivering the Sir Tony Baldry Lecture in Winchester Cathedral on 28 February, as part of the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature (Features, 7 March). https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk “Technology can create challenges as well as opportunities,” he says. “Today’s digital lan...
Mar 14, 2025•34 min
On this episode, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, is interviewed about his new booklet, Can We Imagine a Future Together? Intercultural lessons for living in love and faith, in which he attempts to chart a way forward for the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. Bishop Snow is the lead bishop on LLF. “The Church of England is in a season of discernment as it seeks a way to honour and accommodate differing theological and pastoral responses to Living in Love and Faith and to f...
Mar 03, 2025•35 min
Staff writer Francis Martin spent all of last week in the press gallery of Church House, Westminster, reporting on the latest meeting of the General Synod. He reports back to the editor, Sarah Meyrick, about some of the most significant debates and votes, including on the future of safeguarding and proposed changes to the Crown Nominations Commission. Francis was also out and about talking to Synod members. Watch a video of some of the interviews here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025...
Feb 19, 2025•26 min
In 2023, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York asked Professor Alexis Jay to develop proposals for a fully independent structure to provide scrutiny of safeguarding in the Church of England. Her report, published the following year, concluded that not only scrutiny, but operational safeguarding, should be independent, necessitating the creation of two separate charities. But while there is widespread demand for action to prevent further failings, opinion on taking up Professor Jay’s recommendat...
Feb 07, 2025•28 min
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, was in Jerusalem last week when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal was agreed. Shortly after returning from the Holy Land, she spoke to Francis Martin about the reaction to the deal on the ground; the prospects for long-term peace in the region; and more widely about the visit, which included meeting Layan Nasir, a young Anglican woman from Birzeit who was released in December, after eight months in “administrative detention”. “As a Christian and a...
Jan 23, 2025•41 min
This week’s podcast brings a sermon preached by Barbara Brown Taylor at the 2024 Festival of Preaching in Cambridge last September (Features, 20 September 2024). She considers how the Church can bear witness to good news “in a world so full of the other kind”, such as global warfare and climate change, political divisions and churches closing, the loneliness epidemic, and systemic racism. Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest and best-stelling author, whose books include Holy Envy (Books, ...
Jan 17, 2025•16 min
On the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick introduces an exciting new era for the Church Times, including fresh content and contributors, and the return to a news front-page, reflecting our proud heritage as an independent newspaper. She tells Associate Editor Ed Thornton more about the thinking behind the changes. Limited-time digital subscription offer: £10 for 2 Months Digital edition PLUS 2 month free app subscription to Reflections for Daily Prayer: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe
Jan 10, 2025•11 min
On the podcast this week, a panel of experts discuss the question: Does the future have a Church? In an increasingly unstable and dark world, will people return to or at least reconsider belief, or are we continuing to hear the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of faith? The discussion was recorded in London on 26 November at the 2024 Theos Annual Lecture. The panelists were: Daisy Scalchi, Head of Religion and Ethics, BBC Television Justin Brierley, broadcaster, author, and speaker Madeleine...
Dec 13, 2024•57 min
On this episode of the podcast, the Revd Michael Coren is intereviewed about his memoir, Heaping Coals: From media firebrand to Anglican Priest. The book charts how he went from an English working-class family to become a high-profile Roman Catholic media personality in Canada, and how he ended up being ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. An extract from the book was published in the 29 November edition of the Church Times: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/29-november/fe...
Dec 05, 2024•35 min
On this edition of the podcast, Ian Collins is interviewed about his book Blythe Spirit: The remarkable life of Ronald Blythe. Ronald Blythe, who died, aged 100, in January last year was best known for his 1969 account of village life, Akenfield, and to Church Times readers as the author of the weekly “Word from Wormingford” column, which ran for 24 years from 1993. Collins was a close friend of Blythe's for more than three decades. Interview by the Revd Malcolm Doney, a writer, broadcaster, and...
Nov 29, 2024•1 hr 12 min
This week, the editor, Sarah Meyrick, is joined by senior writer Madeleine Davies and news reporter Francis Martin to discuss a momentous and turbulent week for the Church of England: the publication of the Makin review into the abuse carried out by John Smyth, which resulted, five days later, in the Archbishop of Canterbury announcing his resignation. They talk about the findings of the Makin review, the significance of the Archbishop's announcement and what it will mean for safeguarding in the...
Nov 14, 2024•26 min
On the podcast this week, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, talks about his new book, Praying By Heart: The Lord’s Prayer for everyone. The book takes readers through the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase, exploring its meaning and significance for us today. The prayer, he writes, is a “declaration of intent”, which should come with a health warning — ‘don’t say this prayer if you are not prepared to be changed.” An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times. Praying By ...
Nov 07, 2024•22 min
